One Size Definitely Does Not Fit All
By Kevin (Torus Volunteer)
Some learning is best done in groups: singing in a choir or playing in a marching band, football practice, college math courses with hundreds of students packed into a lecture hall and the prof so far away he looks like an ant and you need a TV monitor just to clearly see him. However, other learning is not conducive to group activity: creative writing, French kissing, learning how to make a corn dog, or ESL learning. In fact, ESL in groups is a terrible idea and it’s only done because quite often, there aren’t enough resources for individual instruction.
Why does group ESL suck rocks? Because unless you have the happy circumstance of all of the students in a class being at exactly the same proficiency level and having a common first language and having the same cultural and linguistic experiences, whatever curriculum you design and apply will be wrong for some or even most of your students. The usual situation is that people are packed into a classroom without regard for their differences and in fact, the only commonality among them is that they want to learn English. The result? The things you teach will be understood by some of the students but will zoom right over the heads of others. Your only remedy is to dumb down your teaching (as if everybody got off the boat yesterday), which will, of course, waste the time of the more proficient learners.
If you’ve been teaching/tutoring individual learners for any length of time, you intuitively know this to be true. Just think of the last half dozen students you tutored all sitting together in the same classroom (real or virtual) in front of you. What would you teach them, and how? Answer: you couldn’t. You can’t meaningfully teach multiple ESL learners simultaneously any more than a dentist can fill the cavities of six people at the same time. Everyone needs individual attention.
I was thinking about the various factors that affect a given learner’s proficiency and therefore, what you’ll need to focus on teaching them. First, there’s proficiency itself. It’s too complex to give it simple letter classifications, at least overall. English proficiency consists of:
Vocabulary
Grammar and syntax
Verbal skills
Conversational/listening skills
Cultural contexts, phrasing
Idiomatic speech
Specialized speech (legal, academic, etc.)
Ability to write (not possessed by all native speakers by any means!)
Reading skills
Now let me introduce you to Lee Chang. He’s 22 years old, hails from Shanghai, and is here to pursue a master’s degree in computer science. You’re trying to figure out how best to tutor him:
Because Chinese students are required to take English classes from the third grade on, his English vocabulary is quite good.
Likewise, his grammar and syntax are fine.
His learning did not include very much speaking, and culturally, students in China are expected to listen quietly and not be vocal.
He had no one with which to converse in English outside his classroom. His pronunciation skills are poor.
He has virtually no knowledge of American culture or language customs
His learning was very formalized, so, he has no knowledge of US idiomatic speech
Likewise, he doesn’t know specialized speech or even understand the differences
He has some experience writing for his classes
He has very limited reading experience: only what was assigned to him at school.
I think you’ll agree: whatever and however you might decide to teach him, it will be suitable only for him, unless you run into someone virtually identical. It’s one thing to sort learners into A, B, and C classifications. But when the real classification should be something like CCAAAAABB (as in Mr. Chang’s case), you wind up with an actual proficiency profile that as unique as a fingerprint. Therefore, it’s a happy coincidence if group instruction benefits him or any other learner at all.
That’s where we come in.